classification and diagnosis

Question 1

schizphrenia

Answer 1

psychotic disorder that is characterised by severe disruptions in psychological functioning and loss of contact with reality

Question 2

positive symptoms

Answer 2

sympoms that reflect an excess or distortion of normal function

• delusions - beliefs that have no basis in reality
• hallucinations - sesnory experiences of stimuli
• disorganised speech

Question 3

negative symptoms

Answer 3

symptoms that reflect a reduction or loss of normal functions
speech poverty - reduced frequency and quality of speech
avoition

Question 4

differences between icd and dsm

Answer 4

ICD - at least 2 symptoms must be present

DSM - must have one neg and one pos symptom for a month period
signs of disturbances should occur for at least 6 months

Question 5

limitaitions

Answer 5

cultural bias in diagnosis
- copeland gave 134 us and 194 british psychologists a description of a patient
69% of us said shiz whilst only 2% of the brits said the same
poor validty

gender bias in diagnosis
- longnecker found that since the 1980s men have been more diagnosed than women
poor validty

symptom overlap
- ellason and ross found that ppl with DID had more schiz symptoms than ppl with schiz
-? the valdity of classification and diagnosis

co morbidity
- buckley concluded that 50% of patients with a diagnosis of schiz also had a diagnosis of depression and 47% substance abuse
- affects reliability as there may be confusion over which actual disorder is being diagnosed
- valdity is also questioned 12